Abstract

The present study attempts to analyze the effect of consumers’ autonomy and attitude on halal food purchase intention, especially in a collectivist culture. In addition, the effect of consumers’ attitude on their autonomy while making up halal food purchase intention was also investigated. The responses from a sample of 308 respondents from the major cities of Pakistan were gathered with the help of an online questionnaire and then analyzed by using Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The results revealed a large and significant effect of consumers’ attitude on their autonomy to make halal food purchase intention. Moreover, the effect of consumers’ attitude on halal food purchase intention was found to be significant; whereas the effect of consumers’ autonomy on halal food purchase intention was not found. Hence, the results indicate that consumers’ autonomy, which is an innate psychological need of humans, is undermined by their attitude in collectivist cultures. The study was performed to analyze the impact of consumers’ attitude on their autonomy; future studies may be performed to examine the impact of attitude on other basic psychological needs of competence, and relatedness. Furthermore, Pakistan was taken as the context of study, such future research endeavors may be carried out in other collectivist and even non-collectivist societies. The present study is believed to be the first ever to investigate the impact of attitude on autonomy, specifically in a collectivist society.

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